The meeting will take place in Panmunjom, the truce village in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula.

Tensions have been high after the North carried out multiple missile launches in 2017, including a number of ICBMs, and its sixth atomic test, by far its most powerful to date.

The tentative rapprochement comes after the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un warned in his New Year speech that he had a nuclear button on his desk, but at the same time offered Seoul an olive branch, saying Pyongyang could send a team to next month’s Winter Olympics in the South.

Seoul responded with an offer of talks between the two, and earlier this week the hotline between them was restored after being suspended for almost two years.

Late Thursday, the South’s president Moon Jae-In and his US counterpart Donald Trump agreed to delay joint military drills — which always infuriate the North — until after the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang which begin on February 9.

A unification ministry official told AFP that the North faxed a message to Seoul saying it accepted the proposal for talks on Tuesday.

Ministry spokesman Baek Tae-Hyun told journalists that the agenda would include the Pyeongchang Olympics “and the issue of improving inter-Korean relations”.

It followed HMAS Warramunga making an eight-tonne hashish haul in late December during manoeuvres in the area as part of the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) naval partnership.

The latest seizure occurred on January 3 with support from a British Royal Navy helicopter, with crew from the frigate boarding a suspect vessel in international waters.

HMAS Warramunga commanding officer Dugald Clelland said it was a complex night operation.

“The Royal Navy helicopter was able to cue us onto a suspect vessel, which Warramunga’s boarding party searched in challenging conditions,” he said.

“The boarding party did a first-rate job locating and seizing more than three-and-a-half tonnes of illicit narcotics.”

Officials did not say where in the Arabian sea the drugs were seized, where the smuggling vessel was believed to have come from or give its likely destination.

The HMAS Warramunga is part of the Combined Maritime Forces naval partnership in which 32 nations patrol 6.5 million square kilometres (2.5 million square miles) of international waters.

Their focus is on ensuring the free flow of legitimate commerce, but also to crack down on terrorist activity in the Middle East and Indian Ocean regions.

With the mountains packed with skiers for the school holidays, major resort Val d’Isere closed its runs for the day because of heavy snowfall, while Chamonix said it was shutting many of its lifts as a precautionary measure.

“The objective is to keep everyone safe,” said David Ponson, ski chief in the Alpine Savoie region, as many pistes were shut for a second day.

At the other extreme, nearly 400 firefighters on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica were battling blazes fanned by Eleanor’s strong gusts of wind, with three people injured in a fire overnight.

Three hundred goats were killed in the blaze at Chiatra-Canale di Verde near the island’s east coast and 10 homes burnt — five of them completely destroyed, local authorities said.

The prefecture added that the intensity of the blazes was “exceptional in the middle of winter.” Troops from the local airbase have been deployed to help fight the flames.

Eleanor, the fourth winter storm to hit Europe since December, swept into the continent on Wednesday after battering Britain and Ireland.

It has left at least five people dead, including a 21-year-old skier hit by a falling tree in France and a couple in their 60s swept away on Spain’s northern Basque coast by a huge wave.

On Thursday in the French Alps, firefighters said a woman in her 90s died of a heart attack in Crets-en-Belledonne after floods sent a torrent of mud and water into her home.

And a farmer in Savoie was found dead under a snowslide.

Meanwhile a French volunteer firefighter was reported missing after rushing to help when a car plunged into an overflowing river in the Alpine village of Le Moutaret.

At Lenk in central Switzerland, eight people were hurt when a violent gust of wind overturned a railway carriage.

Damage worth millions

In the Netherlands, Eleanor has dealt about 10 million euros ($12 million) of damage to buildings and cars, the Dutch insurers’ union estimated, cited by public television.

The whole of Spain’s northern coast remained on “orange” alert — the second highest on a four-point scale — because of the risk from strong winds and large waves.

More than 40 towns in southwestern Spain have meanwhile brought forward their annual Epiphany feast parades — celebrating the coming of the three wise men with gifts for Jesus — to Thursday because of heavy rain forecast for Friday.

The worst of the storm appeared to have passed by Thursday, though much of eastern France was still on “orange” alert for heavy winds, floods and avalanches.

“The intensity of the rain and melting snow bring a risk of floods via overflowing streams and mudslides,” warned forecaster Cecile Coleou.

Power had been restored to homes in France by Thursday evening, except for around 2,000 residences in Corsica, French electricity companies said.

Germany lowered its alert for violent winds Wednesday evening, but high tides were worrying several states, including in the Moselle Valley where heavy downpours have halted boat traffic.

The Rhine river was set to surge to seven metres (23 feet) on Thursday and was still rising, the Bild newspaper reported. River traffic will be suspended if it hits 8.3 metres.

The storm had snarled air traffic on Wednesday, briefly shutting the Strasbourg and Basel-Mulhouse airports and delaying departures from Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

It also played havoc with road and rail transport, leaving branches, electrical lines and other debris strewn across tracks and highways.

Four people were reported killed in the southeastern states of North and South Carolina, where icy roads sent vehicles skittering.

A cold wave gripping a large section of the United States had already been blamed for a dozen earlier deaths.

Thousands of flights were cancelled and schools were closed in many localities as snow piled up and blizzard conditions began taking hold in the northeast.

Temperatures were so low in northern New York that Niagara Falls — the giant waterfalls straddling the US-Canadian border — froze.

Relief in the form of warmer temperatures was not expected until next week, according to the National Weather Service, and the snow was not expected to taper off until late Friday as the storm moves northeastward into Canada.

‘Bombogenesis’

Weather forecasters dubbed the event a “bomb cyclone” — their nickname for a phenomenon known as “bombogenesis,” in which a weather system experiences a sharp drop in atmospheric pressure and intensifies rapidly, unleashing hurricane-force winds.

Americans along the East Coast faced potential power outages in bitterly cold sub-freezing temperatures — so far, some 24,000 customers in Virginia, 9,000 in Massachusetts, and thousands more in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida already affected.

The southeast was the first to feel the storm’s icy lash — Florida saw its first snow in nearly three decades.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper lamented the deaths of three people in his state, including two killed when their pickup truck slid off a bridge and landed on its roof in a creek bed.

Roads were closed in northern Florida and southeastern Georgia, where Governor Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency in coastal areas.

‘Very dangerous’

With up to a foot (30.5 centimeters) of snow expected in parts of New York, accompanied by powerful wind gusts, schools were closed. More than a foot of the white stuff was expected in Boston.

Mayor Bill de Blasio urged New Yorkers to stay off the roads and take the storm “very seriously.”

The storm could bring “very dangerous conditions,” he warned Wednesday.

Wind gusts of up to 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) per hour were expected through Friday on Long Island and southeastern Connecticut, with wind chills as low as minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 Celsius), increasing the risk of frostbite and hypothermia from prolonged exposure.

“Very anomalous and potent winter storm system currently developing as it moves northward towards New England bringing multiple hazards: moderate to heavy snow, low visibility, strong to damaging winds, coastal flooding, and hazardous seas,” the National Weather Service said.

“Anticipate travel and economic impacts today and tonight with accumulating snow and white-out conditions. Expect downed trees and power lines resulting in scattered to widespread outages.”

Travel disruptions

Airlines have scrapped more than 3,700 flights into and out of the United States so far due to the storm, and delayed 1,400 others, according to flight tracker FlightAware.

Nearly 75 percent of flights out of Boston and New Jersey’s Newark airports were cancelled due to the adverse weather conditions, though only about a quarter of flights to and from New York’s main John F. Kennedy airport were scrapped.

Air France announced it was cancelling all flights Thursday and Friday from Paris to New York and Boston.

Winter storm warnings were in effect from the Mid-Atlantic region northward through New England.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency.

“Virginians living in the impacted areas should stay off the roadways to allow local and state road crews and first responders to do their jobs safely and efficiently,” he said.

“With continued frigid temperatures expected to last for several more days, road conditions will remain treacherous beyond the expected end of the snowfall today,” he added.

National rail line Amtrak cancelled service between Washington and Newport News, Virginia.

In Washington, despite only a dusting of snow, federal agencies opened two hours late, many schools were closed and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the chamber would hold no further votes this week, shortening what was already a short workweek due to the New Year’s holiday.

Senators had only returned to the upper chamber Wednesday, and they face a series of critical votes in the coming weeks, including on funding to prevent a government shutdown and spending cuts.

The announcement came just hours after US President Donald Trump said high-level talks set for next week between North and South Korea were “a good thing”.

Tensions have spiralled in recent months after North Korea held multiple missile launches and its sixth and most powerful nuclear test — purportedly of a hydrogen bomb.

Trump has also traded personal insults with his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-Un, rattling regional allies.

But the last few days have witnessed a rare softening of tone on both sides of the demilitarised zone after Kim offered an olive branch to Seoul during a New Year’s speech, saying he was willing to send a team to next month’s Winter Olympics in the South.

The tentative rapprochement took a further step Thursday after South Korean president Moon Jae-In spoke to Trump by telephone with both agreeing to suspend joint military drills, a regular source of Pyongyang’s ire.

“The two leaders agreed to de-conflict the Olympics and our military exercises so that United States and Republic of Korea forces can focus on ensuring the security of the Games,” the White House said in a statement.

Moon’s office said the South Korean president told Trump that delaying the exercises would help ensure the success of the Winter Olympics — being hosted by the South next month in Pyeongchang — “in case the North does not make any more provocations”.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis later said the delay was for practical, rather than political, reasons.

“We have at times changed the timelines on these (drills) for any number of reasons, so for us, this is the normal give and take that we have,” he said, noting that the Olympics are South Korea’s biggest event in terms of international tourism.

He added that the drills, known as Foal Eagle, would be conducted sometime after the Paralympics, which end on March 18.

– New Year rapprochement –

After a year that saw tensions on the Korean peninsula spike to their worst levels in years, 2018 has begun on a tentatively warmer note with Seoul responding positively to Kim’s New Year speech.

On Wednesday the two Koreas restored a cross-border hotline that had been shut down since 2016.

They also agreed to hold high-level talks next week — the first since 2015 — which will focus on “matters of mutual interest”, including the North’s participation in the Winter Olympics.

Mattis said the talks were the result of international pressure, pointing to successive United Nations Security Council votes against the North.

But North Korea’s young leader has shrugged off a raft of new sanctions and heightened rhetoric from Washington as his regime drives forward with its weapons programmes, which it says are meant to defend against US aggression.

While Trump called the talks a “good thing” in a tweet on Thursday, his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, struck a much more cautious tone earlier in the week.

“We won’t take any of the talks seriously if they don’t do something to ban all nuclear weapons in North Korea,” she said Tuesday.

A State Department spokeswoman also warned that Pyongyang’s olive branch may be an attempt to “drive a wedge of some sort” between Washington and Seoul.

The White House statement announcing the suspension of drills said both Trump and Moon “agreed to continue the campaign of maximum pressure against North Korea and to not repeat mistakes of the past”.

Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests has seen the isolated state slapped with painful new sanctions that even its key ally China have backed.

But South Korea and Washington’s regular joint military drills have also been criticised by some as adding to regional tensions, particularly by Beijing and Moscow who have both called for them to be suspended.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov on Thursday said he “welcomed” the halting of drills during the Olympics.

News agency RIA Novosti quoted him as saying that Moscow “observes with satisfaction” that their calls to halt the manoeuvres have been “taken into account”.

Kim’s New Year address also included a warning to the US that he has a “nuclear button” on his table, prompting a furious response from Trump via Twitter that Washington’s nuclear button was “much bigger and more powerful”.

The tweet generated responses both on Twitter and from analysts largely of scorn and alarm. Mattis declined to address the president’s tweet.

“My job as the secretary of defence is to make certain that we have forces ready to defend this country,” Mattis said.

Ricky Tonacia, 34, and Jack Dennard, 26, were questioned by police after flouting a highly publicised danger zone up to 10 kilometres (six miles) from the volcano.

Mount Agung has been periodically spewing molten clouds of ash and smoke for months, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people living nearby — and drawing some foreign thrill seekers eager to climb its peak.

Authorities were alerted to the men’s expedition after a nearby military post observed torch light on the volcano around 3:00 am local time Thursday (2000 GMT Wednesday), authorities said.

The pair and two Balinese men who drove into the exclusion zone to pick them up were detained several hours later as they attempted to descend the mountain.

“We took them to the Selat Police post for questioning,”  Captain Wayan Mustika from the Karangasem military post told AFP.

“They said the hotel where they were staying told them the volcano is safe.

“We released them at 11:25 am because there was no criminal offence,” he added.

Mustika added that a Russian man was briefly taken into custody after he was caught trying to climb Agung last week.

The volcano’s alert level remains at maximum, but the 10-kilometre radius danger zone was reduced to six kilometres by Indonesia’s volcanology centre on Thursday afternoon.

“Mount Agung is still in the eruptive phase and could impact settlements,” the centre said in a statement.

Agung rumbled to life in September, forcing the evacuation of 140,000 people living nearby.

Activity decreased in late October and many returned to their homes, but the volcano has again been belching towering columns of thick grey smoke and ash for the past six weeks.

A spike in activity in late November sparked travel chaos, forcing hundreds of flights to and from the tropical holiday island to be cancelled and severely impacting its tourist-dependent economy.//AFP

Indonesian Anti Narcotic Police Unit display 1.3 tons of cannabis after they raided six suspected narcotics dealers in West Jakarta on New Year’s eve.

// EPA-EFE PHOTO

// EPA-EFE PHOTO

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    The city-state’s media regulator said the film, “Radiance of Resistance”, had a “skewed narrative” and could cause divisions among its ethnically diverse population.

Most of Singapore’s 5.6 million inhabitants are ethnic Chinese but it is also home to substantial Muslim Malay and Indian minorities, as well as many expatriates. It has strict laws against anything seen as provoking disharmony.

The film was due to be shown Thursday at the Singapore Palestinian Film Festival, which showcases works by Palestinian filmmakers and artists and has been running since 2016.

Four other films will still be screened at the festival, according to its website.

The banned work looked at the lives of two young girls presented as the new faces of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli military occupation.

One of the girls, 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi, has been hailed as a hero by Palestinians who see her as bravely standing up to Israel’s occupation but Israelis accuse her family of using her as a pawn in staged provocations.

She was charged in an Israeli military court Monday with several offences, including assault, after a video of her kicking and slapping two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank went viral.

The charges relate to the events in the video but also five other incidents.

“In holding up the girls as role models to be emulated in an ongoing conflict, the film incites activists to continue their resistance against the alleged oppressors,” Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority said on its website.

“The skewed narrative of the film is inflammatory and has the potential to cause disharmony amongst the different races and religions in Singapore.”

Film festival organiser Adela Foo told AFP she respected the decision and would not appeal.

“Naturally, I am a little sad and disappointed,” said Foo, a 23-year-old student. A film was also banned at the 2016 edition of the festival, she said.

Singapore and Israel have a friendly relationship, unlike some of the city-state’s Muslim-majority neighbours who have no diplomatic ties with the country.//AFP

Surakiart was chosen by Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi last year to offer advice on the implementation of the report by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to end the crisis.

Annan had submitted his final report on the Rakhine crisis in August last year, around the time a militant group had attacked security outposts in the state.

The attack prompted a tough reaction from the Myanmar military, which killed more than a hundred of people. More than 600,000 people fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, accusing the military of perpetrating atrocities.

The international community, including the UN, accused Myanmar authorities of mishandling the situation and its “clearance operation” was seen as an attempt at ethnic cleansing to force the Muslim Rohingya out of the country.

Surakiart on Wednesday discussed the situation and his work with Mark Field, Britain’s Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

Field was in Bangkok on Wednesday and held discussions with Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on bilateral ties between Thailand and UK.

The UK minister, who oversees Asia Pacific affairs, emphasised the importance of repatriation of the Rohingya to Rakhine state and believed they must have the right to Myanmar citizenship as well as necessary humanitarian assistance, Surakiart revealed.

“Citizenship for displaced persons is important but it would take time to verify their nationality,” Surakiart said, adding, “the experience of many Asean countries on the matter would be useful.”

The international community should provide assistance on education for displaced persons as well as in the Myanmar language so as to enable them to assimilate in the society, said Surakiart, who refrained from using any particular name for the group referred to as “Bengalis” by Myanmar authorities.

Surakiart also briefed Field on his working process and procedure and that there would be a meeting of the advisory board in Nya Pyi Taw late this month.

“The key problem is that there is a big gap between Myanmar’s and the international community’s interpretation of the situation and the problems in Rakhine state, which may create obstacles in making concerted efforts to help those who need immediate assistance,” he said.

A major task for the advisory board is to bridge the gap in order to mobilise cooperation to solve the problems, he said.

According to NASA, a supermoon is a full moon that is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit. The final episode will be the second full moon in a month. Called a blue moon, the phenomenon is said to happen every two and a half years on average.

“With the total eclipse, it’ll be a royal spectacle indeed: a ‘super blue blood’ Moon,” stated the organization on its website, explaining that the Moon will lose its brightness and take on an eerie, fainter-than-normal glow, giving it the name “blood moon.”

Featuring a total lunar eclipse, the supermoon is viewable from western North America across the Pacific to Eastern Asia.

“The lunar eclipse on January 31 will be visible during moonset. Folks in the Eastern United States, where the eclipse will be partial, will have to get up in the morning to see it,” said NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center research scientist Noah Petro, adding that it would be another great the opportunity to watch the moon.